Answers

1998/99 Figure Skating Season

What did you think of the judging at worlds, the way you were judged and the way the event was judged overall?  I wish I had been able to see you but they only show the final flight of the free dance on CTV.  I actually agreed with the results of the top few I saw though, I think the main reason the crowd was upset is they are anxious to see an upset so they already have the favored team down in their minds.  That is just my opinion though. 
David Brown
Canada - Wednesday, September 22, 1999 at 23:09:27 (MET DST)
 

Kati & René: Hi David,
now you finally get an answer.
Well, we think that the way how we were judged was allright. We were looking for that 7th place which we got in the end. So we were quite satisfied with the result.
On the top, from our view, it was also correct, because the Russians were really good at Worlds. Much better than at Europeans. They changed something in the music, they had a good flow, good speed and were technically (footwork) stronger than the French and the Canadiens. Their theme and music for the Free Dance was still a question of taste, but it was difficult and clean. And they were defending champions, that means, if you want to beat them, you have to be really better! Not just even or more beautiful to watch! Do you understand?
But anyway, Ice Dancing is really difficult to judge, especially on the best level, but we think that the judges did a good job. But we give a "?" behind the judging at Europeans!!!!!!!!
Best wishes, Kati & Rene.

Dear Kati and Rene,
Congratulations on your performance at Worlds. My question is what is your main goal next season? Have you thought about what kind of theme you are going to do for your free dance next season? Your free dance was brillant this year and how can you improve on this year free dance to next season's? Keep up the good work and best of luck to you in the future.
Aloha, Kris
Kris, Hawaii, United States - Wednesday, May 5, 1999
 

Hi, Kris,
our main goal next season is to move up maybe one or two places, it is such a long way in ice-dancing to get to the top, but we want to improve again technically and we try to have some good new ideas.
We are still looking for the theme of our free dance, because we were for four weeks in the army for a training now, and first we will concentrate on the Original Dance, Latin. So we can not tell more until now.
All the best to you and bye, bye Aloha, Kati & René
PS: We envy you, you are in Hawaii....

I saw the Europeans on a tape on ESPN from a friend who has satellite. Actually if I was watching it live I would have thought you were dissapointed with your marks. Going into to worlds do you have a goal for an improved placement(top five for example)or just to skate as well as you can and peak for worlds. There was a change between two teams at the Grand prix final so does that give you hope something can change at worlds? Good luck.
David Brown
Bathurst, N.B, Canada - Monday, March 8, 1999
 

Hallo David,
We just look forward to worlds and we will skate our best, but we have no placements in our mind for the moment, we just want to be in a good shape and skate best we can and in the end we will see, where we can finish in worlds.
We think for the Grand Prix Final in St.Petersburg the changing in results was good, so you can see that there are still some changes possible for worlds, it is sometimes so hard to make changes in ice dancing placements...
Until next E-Mail Greetings to you from Kati and René from Germany

Were you happy with your time at the European Championships, your result, or your performance, or your time there? ABC and CTV both cut out time so I did not see any of the dance event. I did not hear all the results either but I am confused about something. I heard the French team had 4 firsts and 4 seconds and the Russian team 4 first and 3 seconds and the Russians won. I don't understand that at all. It is great to hear you guys have not lost heart of your lack of movement so far this year. You are improving almost every time I see you and it is great to hear you have such a great attitude about you sport. Are your programs at their peak now, or is their still some fine-tuning before worlds?
David Brown
Bathurst, N.B, Canada - Tuesday, February 16, 1999
 

Kati & René: Hello David,
Sorry, we are answering your questions just now. It is a pity, that you could not see that much on T.V. from Europeans. It was a really good competition, we were satisfied with our skating and also with the result we got there.
Beside is Prague a really nice city, we had the chance to make a sightseeing-tour and it was phantastic, this city has so much culture and so many buildings form the old times.
Now to your question, why the French lost against the Russians in Prague, we also don´t know that much about the calculating system, but a very good friend of us, (Tino the webmaster of our homepage) helped us out and tried to explain to you:
The French team had indeed four firsts and four seconds and the Russian team four firsts and three seconds. Last year - where the old calculating system was still in force - Marina and Gwendal would have won the free dance because they had the "Majority of Placements".
Here are the ordinals of the Top 3 dance couples again:
 

                      EST UKR AUT HUN USA SVK LTU JPN CAN 
Krylova & Ovsiannikov  1   1   2   2   3   3   2   1   1  
Anissina & Peizerat    2   2   1   1   1   1   3   2   2  
Lobacheva & Averbukh   3   3   3   3   2   2   1   3   3  

Marina and Gwendal as well as Anjelika and Oleg had four firsts and therefore not the mojority for the first rank. Now the lower rankings are taken into consideration. Marina & Gwendal had four seconds and would have beaten the three seconds of Anjelika and Oleg. BUT that would have been the situation last year!
This year the new OBO (One-By-One) method of calculating competition results is used. The calculation is done by comparing the ordinals of each couple to those of every other couple on a one-by-one basis. The couple with the most "Wins" gets the better placement. In case couples are tied the number of "Judges in Favour" (JiFs) counts.
And now have a look again to the ordinals above and compare the judge's decisions one-by-one:
 

      Krylova & Ovsiannikov Anissina & Peizerat
EST         1 (WIN)               2
UKR         1 (WIN)               2
AUT         2                     1 (WIN)
HUN         2                     1 (WIN)
USA         3                     1 (WIN)
SVK         3                     1 (WIN)
LTU         2 (WIN)               3
JPN         1 (WIN)               2
CAN         1 (WIN)               2

As you can see: Krylova & Ovsiannikov beat Anissina & Peizerat with five WINS to four WINS :-)
---
We also would have seen the french team on first place, but may be there will be a change in worlds??
We still did some changes in the free dance, because it always has to improve over the year. But training is going well and we are looking forward to worlds in Helsinki.
All the best to you David, and until next E-Mail Kati & René

I saw you guys last year at the Olympics on CBC and you seemed very excited when you were sitting 4th with 6 teams left. Was that your goal at the Olympics, to move into the top 10 for that event? I remember seeing you at Skate Canada during the 94/95 season, from your standing at that event you must have moved up in the world ranks quite a bit since then. Is it every frusterating too how slow the climb is in dance as well when you have dreams of winning an Olympic medal someday?
David Brown
Bathurst, N.B, Canada - Monday, January 18, 1999
 

Kati & René:
We were really happy about our tenth place in Olympic Games, because it was our goal to get under the top ten.
We moved every year up until now, it is really a hard and long way to get to the top in ice-dancing, but we hope we will have the patience to climb up the stairs step by step, we just love ice-dancing and we will see how far we can get there.
Best wishes to you from Kati and René

How do you feel about your season so far? Are you happy with your programs and how the response from judges so far?
David Brown
Bathurst, N.B, Canada - Monday, November 30, 1998
 

Kati & René:
We are really happy, how the season went so far, we also got a good response from the judges about our programs, they just said something against our costum for the free, because i had half skirt, half trouser, but we changed that already into a skirt, until Europeans we will change some things in our free dance, so still a lot of work to do.. but first we are looking forward to christmas now.
To you also Merry, Merry Christmas and thanks for being our fan!
Best wishes Kati & René

Dear Kati and Rene:
I was wondering if you could please tell me if there are any Skating Competitions coming to either Simsbury,C.T., Hartford,C.T., Springfield,M.A., or New Haven,C.T. for 1999? If you know of any I would really appreciate it if you could please e-mail me? Thanks.

Sincerely Yours:
Dana
Bristol, C.T., United States of America, Wednesday, October 7, 1998

Kati & René: Hallo, Dana
Sorry that we can not answer your question, because we donït know that much about all the figure skating competitions in the States, we ar not going to skate this season in the States, but we still do not know about winter 1999. We only know, that 1998 "Skate America" will be in Detroit.
We hope you can find out more about competitions in the states, sorry we could not help you that much.
Sincerely Kati & René from Germany

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